Mercedes gave updated power units to Williams and Alpine before McLaren – report. Mercedes reportedly prioritised Williams and Alpine over McLaren for Silverstone power unit update.

According to the latest issue of Autosprint, Mercedes supplied updated power units to customer teams Williams and Alpine at the British Grand Prix, but not to McLaren.

2025 has clearly left its mark

After an opening to the season that was almost unbelievably disappointing, McLaren showed encouraging signs of competitiveness in Japan and Miami, but those performances were not backed up in the races that followed.

Mercedes and Ferrari have emerged as the leading forces so far, while McLaren and Red Bull have been left fighting for the scraps. Making life even more difficult for the Woking-based outfit is the fact that it relies on Mercedes as its power unit supplier. Throughout the first part of the season, McLaren has reportedly struggled to fully understand how to extract the maximum potential from the Mercedes power unit. Now, the latest issue of Autosprint claims another setback has added to the team’s frustrations.

According to the Italian weekly magazine, now on newsstands, Mercedes delivered upgraded power units to customer teams Williams and Alpine at Silverstone, while McLaren did not receive the latest specification. The Woking team is instead expected to get the updated units this weekend at the Belgian Grand Prix. The revised power unit is said to offer improvements not only in terms of reliability but also in overall performance efficiency. Evidently, the events of the 2024 and 2025 seasons have not been forgotten. As a Mercedes customer team, McLaren outperformed and embarrassed the works outfit, which now appears unwilling to risk—or even indirectly facilitate—another such setback.